Icecat will further improve its services and add new functionalities for its users in 2022. Below, a concise summary of the planned developments in the Icecat Service Roadmap 2022.
Same as in 2021 a critical project in 2022 is to publish more analytics on our front office in the Brand Rank Page and to include more of our reporting in this graphical interface behind a brand login.
| – Documenting the Reporting API | Q1 |
| – Statistics API-out as a microservice | Q1-Q3 |
| – Expand the brand rank page further with insights | Q1-Q4 |
| – Track more interactions with product assets | Q1-Q4 |
| – To include all LIVE events in the standardized report. This includes, for example, video and 3D usage, content interactions, and scrolling | Q2 |
| – Rework logical/tech user filtering | Q2 |
| – Limit report on Brand locales | Q2 |
| – Possibly exclude users with an empty value for “Business type” | Q2 |
The Icecat portal attracts around 8 billion visits annually. Improving usability, functionality, and SEO are therefore critical points.
| – Monitor and improve search | Q1-Q4 |
| – Download generic data of distributor feeds | Q2 |
| – Allow users to upload SLA product lists | Q3-Q4 |
| – Allow for self-management of standard Icecat subscriptions | Q4 |
| – Possibility for users to leave a comment on the product page | Q3-Q4 |
Hundreds of brand editors use Icecat Vendor Central, our global multilingual PIM cloud, to enrich the product data sheets for their channel partners. Therefore, improving usability, efficiency, quality management, and workflow is the main focus this year.
| – Brand quality product datasheets with a >50% completeness score automatically upgraded to “Icecat quality” | Q1 |
| – Inheritance of the brand logic by sub the brands | Q1 |
| – Copy the product upgrade | Q1 |
| – “Invite your reseller” button for brand managers | Q1-Q2 |
| – Possibility to filter user-specific taxonomy on the product level | Q1 |
| – Further upgrades of the Editor Assignment Tracking Tool to increase workflow efficiency | Q1-Q4 |
| – Finalize fully multilingual support for all 50+ languages | Q1 |
| – ETL speed upgrade and include for brand editors | Q2 |
| – Possibility to assign more than one country to the user | Q2 |
| – Authorization requests automatization | Q2 |
| – Possibility of creating new image types without developer help | Q3 |
| – Access for third-party users to PIM: New “user” quality product datasheets | Q3-Q4 |
| – Possibility to have user-specific assets | Q2-Q3 |
| – Asset hub: Possibility to assign different assets to a group of products based on family, features, and other elements | Q3-Q4 |
| – Editor journal V2 refactoring to improve tracking of changes made by editors | Q4 |
| – Sub user possibility in the system | Q2-Q4 |
Ten billion product datasheet requests were supported during 2021 by our pull-APIs. Furthermore, the data is used in more and more industries or Verticals. Therefore, adaptations are needed to improve our APIs’ efficiency, timeliness, and stability.
| – Personalized, user-specific nRT XML. | Q1 |
| – Hard limitations on Datasheet downloads | Q2 |
| – Open Icecat distribution limitation on subscribed verticals | Q2 |
| – Icecat Health Dashboard | Q1-Q2 |
| – Possibility to call LIVE page with 2 languages | Q1-Q2 |
| – nRT diary of product updates + taxonomy changes per period. | Q3 |
| -Explanatory text should be available via XML and JSON | Q3 |
| – Personalized index files | Q2-Q3 |
Cedemo plays a prominent role in the Toys & Gaming market and the French e-commerce channel. As a result, most processes between Icecat and Cedemo are now well-aligned. In 2022 we are going to merge Old video games and Syndy platforms with Cedemo new platform
| – Phased out old video games platform | Q1 |
| – Pricing Management Improvement | Q1 |
| – CMS upgrade: possibility to search based on the external product ID | Q1 |
| – UI improvement for product content optimization | Q2 |
| – Product completeness report to retailers | Q2 |
| – Merge Cedemo-Syndy platforms | Q2-Q4 |
| – Automatic sourcing improvement | Q3 |
| – Channel management for logistical features | Q3 |
| – Possibility to archive the product | Q3-Q4 |
| – Move Cedemo Platform to Icecat infrastructure. | Q3-Q4 |
| – Cedemo database to Icecat Master Database. | Q3-Q4 |
Testseek offers Expert Reviews, User Reviews, and now also shoppable reviews. A further ambition is to add tooling for the creation of user-generated reviews.
| – Modernisation of the existing framework | Q1-Q3 |
| – Align APIs with Icecat APIs (JSON and LIVE) | Q1-Q3 |
| – Refactoring Expert and User reviews functionalities | Q1-Q4 |
| – Live API upgrade/optimization | Q1-Q4 |
| – Tool to support User Generate Review creation | Q1-Q4 |
The Syndy PIM cloud is used in FMCG and beyond. For local and global accounts, functionality improvements are created:
| – Digital Asset Management improvements | Q1 |
| – FMCG feature types optimization | Q1 |
| – Reporting improvements | Q1 |
| – AKZO API Integration | Q1 |
| – Global Assortment Feature | Q1-Q2 |
| – GS1 integration | Q1-Q4 |
| – Merge Cedemo-Syndy platforms | Q2-Q4 |
| – Integration improvements | Q2-Q4 |
| – Admin improvement | Q2-Q3 |
| – Architectural improvements | Q2-Q4 |
| – Product Hierarchy/Private Label | Q4 |
| – Bulk Import for Customers | Q4 |
For security, performance, and functionality reasons, tech stack innovations are continuously applied during 2022.
| – A new tool is needed to replace Redis | Q1 |
| – Moving rest of architecture to Kubernetes for the efficiency gain | Q1 |
| – Cassandra 4.0 | Q2 |
| – Private index files & personal product references | Q2-Q4 |
| – Editorial and Taxonomy journal upgrades | Q1-Q4 |
| – Adding new functionalities to the Icecat PIM for Cedemo integration | Q1-Q2 |
| – Replacement of the exchange server from RabbitMQ to Kafka | Q1-Q4 |
| – Storage for Product Stories 2.0 | Q1-Q2 |
| – S3 Storage for video + improved video converter | Q1-Q3 |
| – Distributed & remote backups | Q3-Q4 |
In 2022 we will focus on the following security points:
| – Improvement of disaster recovery objectives & planning | Q1-Q2 |
| – Application token for Icecat services access | Q1-Q3 |
| – Track and log activities of the PIM users | Q1-Q2 |
| – Continuous monitoring of all group sites, including pen testing, vulnerability scans, and fixing | Q1-Q4 |
| – Oauth2 implementation | Q1-Q3 |
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